SR 556 Anyone??

[tombogan03884]

Can I ask a stupid question here?

Ruger is an advertiser on my shows and website, which makes me "paid by Ruger." My good friend Jeff Quinn's website, GUNBLAST, has as one of its top advertisers Ruger, but he's not paid by Ruger. Mas writes for magazines who take ads from...Ruger...but he's an objective source. If a show that is strictly "pay for play" — that is, unless you buy an ad your product doesn't exist, period — an objective source of information? You notice a gun magazine has 3 full page ads from the company that made the gun on the cover...how objective would you rate that information.

How exactly does this work?

Michael "PUZZLED" B

In 40+ years of reading Gun Magazines I have seen a total of 1 write up that said (in effect ) this POS is a waste of metal working. That was a Soldier of Fortune evaluation of the HK VP7 back in the 80's. When I read a review of a gun or hear some one like Tom Gresham or MB talk about one I listen to what words they use, If they say "I liked MY gun " (or some other indication that the reviewer bought the sample ) it holds more weight than "I liked the gun they sent me to try".
Several times people have used the caveat that MB is paid by Ruger ( insert other sponsors here ) but I found that his comments in the last podcast were quite in line with the comments others had made in comparing the "new" .22 to the AR.
To paraphrase, he said this IS NOT a TACTICAL TRAINING gun, it is a plinker , that replicates the styling, and features  that younger shooters associate with the word "RIFLE". He also said that if you want a TACTICAL TRAINING RIFLE, get a dedicated 22 upper for your real AR.

[fightingquaker13]

MB,

You are asking the $60K question there!  I like to get info from shows and magazines, but I filter it through the lens of commercialism. I'm seeing a lot of good stuff on BSA, and nothing personal, but I found myself asking last night "How much is Michael getting to say that?"

Well the answer to that is simple. You have two choices.Option one is a free site like this and Gun Blast that are underwritten by sponsors, caveat emptor (no offence MB but its the truth). Option two is to go with pubs like Cooks Illustrated or Consumer Reports which take no advertisingand make their money through subscritions (which means YOU pay to play). Personally I prefer this site and Gun Blast. I do not expect to hear MB or Jeff Quinn review a Ruger product as a POS, but I also don't expect Ruger to produce one either. These guys get their money from quality companies that have produced quality products for decades. You know (if you are at all gun literate) what the pros and cons of Ruger are. I know, and I've got three in the room where I am typing this. So what if the reviews accentuate the positive? So long as I'm not lied to (false claims or hiding a major flaw), I'm happy. I don't think either MB or Quinn would do that. All I would expect to hear from either gentleman would be either a deafening silence, or a rote recitation of the catalog followed by "I haven't had a chance to test it yet" if Ruger were to put out a real dog. Neither of those things has happened yet, and Ruger has yet to produce a dog. So I'm happy with MB's ethics.
FQ13 who understands that money, and comprises, need to be made, and long as its honest, I have zero problem with either
FQ13

[Buckwheat McCoy]

Hey guys, I don't get paid by Ruger or MB or Moos, or anybody around here.  I just live in this small SW Oregon town (1100 souls) in a double wide manufactured home.  Feel free to PM me or contact me by phone.  I own a SR556 and I would go to war with this carbine.  I'm gonna get me another one as soon as I can afford it.  I'm not known by anyone on the this forum and I'm certainly no expert, but if you want a piston AR, I strongly believe that the SR556 is the way to go.  Yes, I could have purchased a standard AR for less than $900, but decided on the Ruger.  I do firmly believe that it was money well spent and strongly believe that no one will be unhappy with the SR556.  It's a personal thing with me, I just plain like the SR556 better than my Bushy M4.  I can't explain it better than that; I just do.

Now, having said all that from my soapbox, if Ruger, MB, Moos, or anyone else wants to send me a check for my trailer-trash small-town-dewelling god-fearing bitterly-clinging endorsement of the SR556, I certainly won't refuse it...

[tombogan03884]

I posted this, it turned up in my previous posts but not in this thread, beats me how that works but here it is again

In 40+ years of reading Gun Magazines I have seen a total of 1 write up that said (in effect ) this POS is a waste of metal working. That was a Soldier of Fortune evaluation of the HK VP7 back in the 80's. When I read a review of a gun or hear some one like Tom Gresham or MB talk about one I listen to what words they use, If they say "I liked MY gun " (or some other indication that the reviewer bought the sample ) it holds more weight than "I liked the gun they sent me to try".
Several times people have used the caveat that MB is paid by Ruger ( insert other sponsors here ) but I found that his comments in the last podcast were quite in line with the comments others had made in comparing the "new" .22 to the AR.
To paraphrase, he said this IS NOT a TACTICAL TRAINING gun, it is a plinker , that replicates the styling, and features  that younger shooters associate with the word "RIFLE". He also said that if you want a TACTICAL TRAINING RIFLE, get a dedicated 22 upper for your real AR.
Another thing to bear in mind when reading ALL modern gun reviews, the technology has pretty much matured, there are only so many operating systems, materials, etc. that can be used, modern design is mostly trying to mix and match them in salable fashion. On top of that current manufacturing techniques assure us of fairly decent quality across the board, fit and finish may vary but when some one tries to sell a "turd" like the Sig Mosquito, (which may be an outstanding pistol but has a universal reputation as a "jamomatic" ) the allows users to warn each other. it may not be fool proof but if a bad customer review on a website like this doesn't get any argument then you can consider yourself warned, I will point out that comments here have changed my opinion of High Point.
But returning to my topic, the primary reason that all gun reviews are favorable is that no one can get away with making crap.
To take the SR 556 as an example, maybe it IS "just another AR"  but Ruger has a good reputation, and I have heard no complaints about it. It may not matter to most of us, but to some one with serious brand loyalty it could be very important.

[Hazcat]

Can I ask a stupid question here?

Ruger is an advertiser on my shows and website, which makes me "paid by Ruger." My good friend Jeff Quinn's website, GUNBLAST, has as one of its top advertisers Ruger, but he's not paid by Ruger. Mas writes for magazines who take ads from...Ruger...but he's an objective source. If a show that is strictly "pay for play" — that is, unless you buy an ad your product doesn't exist, period — an objective source of information? You notice a gun magazine has 3 full page ads from the company that made the gun on the cover...how objective would you rate that information.

How exactly does this work?

Michael "PUZZLED" B

MB, I consider the source.  If I trust the reviewer then I don't care where he gets his money.  For example you I trust but a certain deep voice, pompadour haired TV host is just a paid talking head that I would never consider a source.

[Sponsor]

[Pathfinder]

Buckwheat, never let your relative newness here slow you down. Doesn't look like you did. Thanks for the Ruger vote, Ruger took an interesting approach, and I may go for one - if and when I find another job.

In other words, Buckwheat - O'Tay!!!     



Hey, somebody had to say it!

[ericire12]

Can I ask a stupid question here?

Ruger is an advertiser on my shows and website, which makes me "paid by Ruger." My good friend Jeff Quinn's website, GUNBLAST, has as one of its top advertisers Ruger, but he's not paid by Ruger. Mas writes for magazines who take ads from...Ruger...but he's an objective source. If a show that is strictly "pay for play" — that is, unless you buy an ad your product doesn't exist, period — an objective source of information? You notice a gun magazine has 3 full page ads from the company that made the gun on the cover...how objective would you rate that information.

How exactly does this work?

Michael "PUZZLED" B

I think that it is just a general cynicism that carries over because there are so many gun magazines (The periodicals, not the "Clips") out there that are so obviously in the tank for their advertisers. They run so many stories and reviews that are nothing more then advertisements for their sponsors' products and it just raises some red flags with gun guys.

****It is important to note, that IMO this is not the case with DRTV and I have seen nothing to lead me to believe that it is the case with GunBlast. I was just suggesting that perhaps opinions should sometimes be taken with a grain of salt... and perhaps when insiders post reviews of a product the very second a company announces the product to the public... well....  maybe an extra grain of salt might be needed****

I also dont really think that it is necessarily a bad thing that magazine's pander to their advertisers..... It is a business after all, and if readers want to keep reading their magazines and thumbing through the beautiful pictures that they put out..... well.... maybe they just need to be a little more understanding of the real world and realize that it takes the big money of those advertisers to keep things running.








*Sometimes you really have to roll your eyes though......
We all saw obvious examples of this a while back when there were several high profile gun recalls...... and I would be willing to bet that you will see the SR-22 on the cover of atleast several major gun rags in the up coming months. Will the Remington 597 VTR get the same coverage? I bet not! Has it been covered at all since it was announced back in June? Nope. Is it essentially the same gun for $175 less? Yep.
http://www.downrange.tv/forum/index.php?topic=8855.msg116106#msg116106

I was also reading a gun rag that I have a subscription to just the other day -- which shall remain nameless -- and saw a very blatant example of this. They did a very flattering write up on a WWII surplus rifle which is sold through a company -- which shall also remain nameless -- who regularly advertises their surplus rifles and pistols in various gun rags. I happened to notice their advertisements in the aforementioned magazine each of the several months leading up to this out-of-the-blue article on their most popular seller..... their ad was also in the current issue.

The article started off by the author noting that the magazine's editor caught him by surprise when he came to him one day and simply told him to contact the company, get a rifle and then go have some fun with it. The article of course made several mentions to the company where one could buy such a rifle if one wanted to and all the extra goodies that came with the  rifle purchase..... the whole thing really made me chuckle

But hey, like I said..... you got to pay the bills and you got to keep the lights on!

[tombogan03884]

 Eric, Was it by any chance Mitchel's Mausers, who have drawn a lot of fire for restamping numbers and other such deceptive practices ?

http://shootersforum.com/showthread.htm?t=20832

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090914210341AAKKPXG

http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=361836

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=271&topic_id=1811&mesg_id=1820

http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?p=64075
(Spotted a familiar Avatar in that last one    )

[ericire12]

Eric, Was it by any chance Mitchel's Mausers, who have drawn a lot of fire for restamping numbers and other such deceptive practices ?

 

























 

[Hazcat]

the SR 556 IS on the cover of this months American Rifleman!  That is why I did not think of it for the "new gun" thread.  I had this magazine a week before the 'official' announcement.